By 1960, the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War had caused much unrest in the American people. Protests against the war were prevalent through to the war's end in 1973. Protests of many kinds flourished, one being poetry, which often ignored common structural and contextual formalities and drove in the social or political message they aimed to address. Noteworthy poets during this time were Tim O'Brien, Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, and Adrienne Rich.
Background
Combat during the Vietnam War
The mission of the war in Vietnam was to stop the spread of communism. The United States government wanted to prevent South Vietnam from being overtaken by the communist North Vietnam, thus sparking the involvement of the United States military.
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy attempted to resolve the issues they perceived in Vietnam without direct involvement from the U.S. military, but after the Gulf of Tonkin attacks, President Johnson decided that the U.S. involvement could no longer be passive. The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism.
Engaged in a war that many viewed as having no way to win, U.S. leaders lost the American public's support for the war. To avoid the draft young men, sometimes even with the support of their families, fled to Canada and did deliberate acts in order to not be part of a war that they so strongly disagreed with. The nation was divided, with college-age young adults leading protests and demonstrations against the war, and the government misconstruing the progress of the war to the nation. During President Nixon's term of office the 20-year U.S. involvement with Vietnam (1960 - 1973 being the U.S. military occupation) ended with the U.S. military withdrawing and South Vietnam falling to North Vietnam.
United States Involvement
A painting inspired by a photograph taken of soldiers in the Vietnam War
The war began on November 1, 1955. The United States involvement grew during the 1960s and peaked during 1968. Involvement increased between 1963 and 1968 due to President Lyndon B. Johnson wanting to continue the battle against communism. Johnson reversed the policy Kennedy had put in place before his death to withdraw troops. Afterwards, the Unites States began to slowly withdraw and on August 15, 1973, United States military involvement in the war ended. The United States involvement ended due to the Case-Church Amendment and finally, on April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War ended. Territorial changes that took place were North and South Vietnam being unified to create the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Poetry and Literature
The Vietnam War influenced poetry and literature. Citizens and soldiers alike purged their feelings about the war through writing non-fiction and fiction. War affected the population at large so greatly that "literary reactions were of course supported by developments in society at large, especially in the late 1960's. Beatniks, drugs, communes, feminism, gay liberation, black pride and power, zen, and other manifestations of cultrural eclecticism, and the protest against the war in Vietnam had an impact on the subject matter and style of poetry, which generally rejected "high" culture, "closed" and therefore "strict" forms, tradition, and other embodiments of authority[1] ." The refusal to follow conventional routes of poetry reflected the writers' protest of the political and social conditions of their time; with the striking and often bizarre new poetry along with war-like themes, the writers spoke out the only way they knew how.
Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien is known for his writings on the Vietnam War and the effect that the war had on soldiers involved with it. Tim O'Brien's novels The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato are set to the backdrop of the Vietnam War and have inspired much conversation since its publishing about the rightness of war and erased the romanticized images that war had once held. Having began his career with the memoir "If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home", he has since used he personal experience to shape his stories and allow for conversation of the politics of the Vietnam War to be brought into question. In this memoir he wrote, "Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories."
In Going After Cacciato, O'Brien illustrates how perception of time as well as reality becomes warped by war. O'Brien accomplishes this through the alternating chapters taking place in the past, present, and a dream. Through the past, the horror of the Vietnam War is established due to the number of deaths that occur in the squad. The dream state establishes the consequences of abandoning the war and going AWOL through the constant fear of being caught the main character experiences. In the novel it says, "The tripflares were useless. The ammunition corroded and foxholes filled with mud and water during the nights, and in the mornings there was always the next village, and the war was always the same[2] ." This description of what it is like to be in Vietnam set up the story and provide the reader with a mental image of the backdrop.
Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Niedecker was a prominent objectivist poet known for her natural themes, sparse language, and vivid imagery. Niedecker had a great interest for American history as well as social reform; during major events in American history, such as World War II and the Vietnam War, Niedecker's poetry reflects her feelings about the events. Her influence from social writers and her deep feelings towards the troubles of her country saw her writing style shift from surrealist themes towards social and political themes.Her poems conjure themes and feelings of peace.
An example of Niedecker's anti-war poetry is seen in her work North Central, in the poem "Wintergreen Ridge", she raises the images of social protest during the 1960's, conjuring images of flower children, women standing in front of bulldozers, bombs, and violent words interspersed with natural images. From "Wintergreen Ridge:"
"Nobody, nothing ever gave me greater thing than time unless light and silence which if intense makes sound Unaffected by man thin to nothing lichens grind with their acid granite to sand These may survive the grand blow-up"
This passage is one of many in "Wintergreen Ridge" that shows Niedecker's protest of the Vietnam war, and her support of the people on American soil protesting against it. The above passage values time, and how everyone can value time because we are all given it. However, in this case, can quickly leave with the blast of a bomb. Putting "by man" on its own line on the page places a certain emphasis on how humanity is intervening with the natural processes of time, as well as the plants and rocks/minerals she frequently brings up, which she reminds us we are still part of. Her phrases "grind with their acid" and "granite to sand" feel painful and gritty, as if the textures of the words are harsh and unpleasant in themselves, which only furthers her juxtaposition between the beautiful, flowery, natural world, and the stark, destroyed, post-bomb world she wants the reader to also fear.
George Oppen
George Oppen
George Oppen was most commonly known for "Of Being Numerous" in relation to the Vietnam War. Michael Davidson says about him, "...Oppen found value in the not said, in the incomplete phrase, in the bare noun. His silence was political in that it represented the inability of art to provide an adequate image of human suffering. His return to writing was political by representing the inability of communal forms to account for the individual agency. The meaning of being numerous is the conversation we continue to have about a poet's decision not to write[3] ."
Oppen's work, especially Of Being Numerous, focuses on unity. Much like Niedecker, he says, "There are things/We live among, 'and to see them/Is to know ourselves." The opening line just quoted advocates understanding. Notice, that Oppen says "There are," which indicates that his poem is dealing with real people; the decisions we make affect real lives. This was often forgotten in the propaganda rich culture of the Cold War. Moreover, Oppen argues that there is something in them that relates to us and thus he creates an open and productive relation between the those who are living (we) and those they are among. Indeed, Oppen rejects the othering that occurred during the Cold War in general and the Vietnam War in particular. It is also important to note the title: Oppen argues for a plurality of understanding, of meaning, of existence. Therefore, there is no us or them, but an all encompassing unity.
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov was a British-born poet who moved to America in the 1950's. The move to America and her exposure to American poets and poetic movements changed her perspective on poetry. She worked at Black Mountain College, though she refused to follow any one school of poetry to define her open and experimental style.
Levertov's poetry changed once again in the 1960's. She was vehemently against the war and became a strong proponent in the anti-war movement through her poetry, protesting, and demonstrations. She eventually visited North Vietnam, and reported the area to be a paradise of beautiful people; after her visit her poetry focused on the "simplified worlds of heroes, innocents, and demons[4] ." Her anti-war poetry "fell into loose rhetoric, sensational imagery, and violent emotions. For Levertov could not integrate the shock of war with her vision of human nature."[5]
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley is most often associated with the Black Mountain Poets. His style is seen as minimal, sparse, and indirect. It often does not give the reader signposts within the text that the reader would normally expect. In 1968, Creeley, along with many others, signed "The Writers and Editors War Tax Pledge", which solidified their refusal to pay taxes in protest of the Vietnam War[6] .
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
In the 1950's, Adrienne Rich's poetry was described as "a princess in a fairy tale", however after marriage, children, and the start of the 1960's, her poetry turned increasingly aggressive about social issues. In particular, she was concerned with women's rights and the female role in society, race issues, and the Vietnam War. Her earlier poetry consisted of careful, metered patterns, however her style eventually shifted into free verse[7] . The breaking down of structure in her poetry shows her opening up to the world around her and her rebellion against the issues that, at the time, the United States was only starting to address.
Rich's poem "Diving into the Wreck" illustrates the impact the Vietnam War had upon her writing through her word choice. Words within the poem's first stanza that connect to war such as "knife-blade," "body-armor," and "grave." It creates a battle feeling as if the narrator is preparing for an underwater war of her verses the ocean thus the purpose of the "knife-blade," "body-armor of black rubber," and "the grave and awkward mask." Each of the motions the narrator goes through is part of preparing herself for what waits below the surface. She makes sure she has a weapon and protection like a soldier marching into war. The narrator searches of treasure much like how a soldier wants to win the war.
Videos
Many Vietnam Veterans have found an outlet to dealing with their post-traumadic stress disorder through poetry. Larry Winters is one well known Vietnam Veteran who has used the power of poetry to deal with his PTSD. He continues to work today reaching out to other soldiers who are trying to cope with their PTSD. His webpage is The Making and Unmaking of a Marine where he showcases some of his own selected writing and discusses how writing can help.
Interesting piece from a CBS documentary of The Battle of Hue during the Tet Offensive in 1968.
Images are used in accordance with fair use practices.If you hold copyright to an image, and do not agree that its use accords with fair use practices,please contact the wiki's creator and organizer.
Background
The mission of the war in Vietnam was to stop the spread of communism. The United States government wanted to prevent South Vietnam from being overtaken by the communist North Vietnam, thus sparking the involvement of the United States military.
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy attempted to resolve the issues they perceived in Vietnam without direct involvement from the U.S. military, but after the Gulf of Tonkin attacks, President Johnson decided that the U.S. involvement could no longer be passive. The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism.
Engaged in a war that many viewed as having no way to win, U.S. leaders lost the American public's support for the war. To avoid the draft young men, sometimes even with the support of their families, fled to Canada and did deliberate acts in order to not be part of a war that they so strongly disagreed with. The nation was divided, with college-age young adults leading protests and demonstrations against the war, and the government misconstruing the progress of the war to the nation. During President Nixon's term of office the 20-year U.S. involvement with Vietnam (1960 - 1973 being the U.S. military occupation) ended with the U.S. military withdrawing and South Vietnam falling to North Vietnam.
United States Involvement
The war began on November 1, 1955. The United States involvement grew during the 1960s and peaked during 1968. Involvement increased between 1963 and 1968 due to President Lyndon B. Johnson wanting to continue the battle against communism. Johnson reversed the policy Kennedy had put in place before his death to withdraw troops. Afterwards, the Unites States began to slowly withdraw and on August 15, 1973, United States military involvement in the war ended. The United States involvement ended due to the Case-Church Amendment and finally, on April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War ended. Territorial changes that took place were North and South Vietnam being unified to create the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Poetry and Literature
The Vietnam War influenced poetry and literature. Citizens and soldiers alike purged their feelings about the war through writing non-fiction and fiction. War affected the population at large so greatly that "literary reactions were of course supported by developments in society at large, especially in the late 1960's. Beatniks, drugs, communes, feminism, gay liberation, black pride and power, zen, and other manifestations of cultrural eclecticism, and the protest against the war in Vietnam had an impact on the subject matter and style of poetry, which generally rejected "high" culture, "closed" and therefore "strict" forms, tradition, and other embodiments of authority[1] ." The refusal to follow conventional routes of poetry reflected the writers' protest of the political and social conditions of their time; with the striking and often bizarre new poetry along with war-like themes, the writers spoke out the only way they knew how.
Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien is known for his writings on the Vietnam War and the effect that the war had on soldiers involved with it. Tim O'Brien's novels The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato are set to the backdrop of the Vietnam War and have inspired much conversation since its publishing about the rightness of war and erased the romanticized images that war had once held. Having began his career with the memoir "If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home", he has since used he personal experience to shape his stories and allow for conversation of the politics of the Vietnam War to be brought into question. In this memoir he wrote, "Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories."
In Going After Cacciato, O'Brien illustrates how perception of time as well as reality becomes warped by war. O'Brien accomplishes this through the alternating chapters taking place in the past, present, and a dream. Through the past, the horror of the Vietnam War is established due to the number of deaths that occur in the squad. The dream state establishes the consequences of abandoning the war and going AWOL through the constant fear of being caught the main character experiences. In the novel it says, "The tripflares were useless. The ammunition corroded and foxholes filled with mud and water during the nights, and in the mornings there was always the next village, and the war was always the same[2] ." This description of what it is like to be in Vietnam set up the story and provide the reader with a mental image of the backdrop.
Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Niedecker was a prominent objectivist poet known for her natural themes, sparse language, and vivid imagery. Niedecker had a great interest for American history as well as social reform; during major events in American history, such as World War II and the Vietnam War, Niedecker's poetry reflects her feelings about the events. Her influence from social writers and her deep feelings towards the troubles of her country saw her writing style shift from surrealist themes towards social and political themes.Her poems conjure themes and feelings of peace.
An example of Niedecker's anti-war poetry is seen in her work North Central, in the poem "Wintergreen Ridge", she raises the images of social protest during the 1960's, conjuring images of flower children, women standing in front of bulldozers, bombs, and violent words interspersed with natural images. From "Wintergreen Ridge:"
"Nobody, nothing
ever gave me
greater thing
than time
unless light
and silence
which if intense
makes sound
Unaffected
by man
thin to nothing lichens
grind with their acid
granite to sand
These may survive
the grand blow-up"
This passage is one of many in "Wintergreen Ridge" that shows Niedecker's protest of the Vietnam war, and her support of the people on American soil protesting against it. The above passage values time, and how everyone can value time because we are all given it. However, in this case, can quickly leave with the blast of a bomb. Putting "by man" on its own line on the page places a certain emphasis on how humanity is intervening with the natural processes of time, as well as the plants and rocks/minerals she frequently brings up, which she reminds us we are still part of. Her phrases "grind with their acid" and "granite to sand" feel painful and gritty, as if the textures of the words are harsh and unpleasant in themselves, which only furthers her juxtaposition between the beautiful, flowery, natural world, and the stark, destroyed, post-bomb world she wants the reader to also fear.
George Oppen
"...Oppen found value in the not said, in the incomplete phrase, in the bare noun. His silence was political in that it represented the inability of art to provide an adequate image of human suffering. His return to writing was political by representing the inability of communal forms to account for the individual agency. The meaning of being numerous is the conversation we continue to have about a poet's decision not to write[3] ."
Oppen's work, especially Of Being Numerous, focuses on unity. Much like Niedecker, he says, "There are things/We live among, 'and to see them/Is to know ourselves." The opening line just quoted advocates understanding. Notice, that Oppen says "There are," which indicates that his poem is dealing with real people; the decisions we make affect real lives. This was often forgotten in the propaganda rich culture of the Cold War. Moreover, Oppen argues that there is something in them that relates to us and thus he creates an open and productive relation between the those who are living (we) and those they are among. Indeed, Oppen rejects the othering that occurred during the Cold War in general and the Vietnam War in particular. It is also important to note the title: Oppen argues for a plurality of understanding, of meaning, of existence. Therefore, there is no us or them, but an all encompassing unity.
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov was a British-born poet who moved to America in the 1950's. The move to America and her exposure to American poets and poetic movements changed her perspective on poetry. She worked at Black Mountain College, though she refused to follow any one school of poetry to define her open and experimental style.
Levertov's poetry changed once again in the 1960's. She was vehemently against the war and became a strong proponent in the anti-war movement through her poetry, protesting, and demonstrations. She eventually visited North Vietnam, and reported the area to be a paradise of beautiful people; after her visit her poetry focused on the "simplified worlds of heroes, innocents, and demons[4] ." Her anti-war poetry "fell into loose rhetoric, sensational imagery, and violent emotions. For Levertov could not integrate the shock of war with her vision of human nature."[5]
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley is most often associated with the Black Mountain Poets. His style is seen as minimal, sparse, and indirect. It often does not give the reader signposts within the text that the reader would normally expect. In 1968, Creeley, along with many others, signed "The Writers and Editors War Tax Pledge", which solidified their refusal to pay taxes in protest of the Vietnam War[6] .Adrienne Rich
Rich's poem "Diving into the Wreck" illustrates the impact the Vietnam War had upon her writing through her word choice. Words within the poem's first stanza that connect to war such as "knife-blade," "body-armor," and "grave." It creates a battle feeling as if the narrator is preparing for an underwater war of her verses the ocean thus the purpose of the "knife-blade," "body-armor of black rubber," and "the grave and awkward mask." Each of the motions the narrator goes through is part of preparing herself for what waits below the surface. She makes sure she has a weapon and protection like a soldier marching into war. The narrator searches of treasure much like how a soldier wants to win the war.
Videos
Many Vietnam Veterans have found an outlet to dealing with their post-traumadic stress disorder through poetry. Larry Winters is one well known Vietnam Veteran who has used the power of poetry to deal with his PTSD. He continues to work today reaching out to other soldiers who are trying to cope with their PTSD. His webpage is The Making and Unmaking of a Marine where he showcases some of his own selected writing and discusses how writing can help.
Interesting piece from a CBS documentary of The Battle of Hue during the Tet Offensive in 1968.
External Links
A Vietnam War Timeline
Denise Levertov's Vietnam Poetry
Vietnam 101: A Short Introduction
References
Images are used in accordance with fair use practices.If you hold copyright to an image, and do not agree that its use accords with fair use practices,please contact the wiki's creator and organizer.
Perkins, David. A History of Modern Poetry. Harvard College, 1987. Print. 348.
O'Brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Print.
Perloff, Marjorie. "George Oppen's 'Of Being Numerous." Sibila, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.
Perkins.
“Writers and Editors War Tax Protest.” New York Post, 1968. Print.
"Adrienne Rich." Poets.org, 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.